Eleven years ago, on a rare snowy weekend in the ancient-modern city of Jerusalem, four dreamers– my three partners and myself — decided to start a business. Little did we know what it would take to transfer random ideas and mounds of passion into a flourishing organism called a company. Our vision was to create software products and services that would help organizations manage the business of IT. To create state-of-the-art software solutions that would transform the way people manage IT. We had the industrialist’s fervor for innovation, creation and success. We shared a belief that a business is much more than just making money: it is about the beating economic heart that drives human life. And thus Digital Fuel was born.

The business gradually acquired a life of its own, with hundreds of customers and thousands of people using our solutions, benefiting from our software and services. In time, we developed three market-leading product lines. Above all, we provided hundreds of families and individuals worldwide with economic prosperity and security, a place to experience, evolve and enjoy! Many of our employees joined us as fresh graduates and pursued their careers within Digital Fuel; many are now serving as executives and managers at other companies. Digital Fuel alumni have gone on to establish several new companies of their own, and a number of couples and families found their start at Digital Fuel as well! We shared ups and downs, excitement and disappointments, success and failure, birth and death, and lots and lots of fun. For all of this, we are very proud and thankful.

As this market became high priority and the consequent demand grew exponentially, it became clear that the best way to continue providing our customers with the best products and services would be to team up with a larger company.

I have chosen VMware to be the best home for Digital Fuel, on account of VMware’s unparalleled leadership position in providing cutting-edge IT Management solutions for the evolving cloud-based dynamic IT. Their current success, excellent products, widespread market reach, relevance to new IT, and primarily the quality of their team and plans for the future, all gave me strong confidence that this is the best place for myself, my team and our customers.

Digital Fuel is a strategic acquisition for VMware, as it extends from a vision of IT as a Service. VMware will continue to develop and evolve our solutions as a key element of its capabilities for managing the business of IT in the cloud era. Nothing can make me happier than the thought of 250,000 VMware customers using and receiving value from our solutions.

My team will continue to work under VMware, and I will personally stay on with VMware to ensure we continue doing what we do best, providing real value!

The synergies are great, and the opportunities are boundless.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the current and past Digital Fuel employees. I am humbled by the opportunity I’ve been awarded to lead such an amazing group of individuals – smart, innovative, passionate, dedicated, hardworking and most importantly, good people.

Yakov and Gilad, the best co-founders, who vowed to do whatever it took to make this business happen, have stuck to their word right up until this very moment when they are probably somewhere in the world meeting a customer. Regardless of title or compensation, they were there, working hard, smart and dedicated.

On this day I also want to remember our dear friend and partner, Benny Lehmann, without whom none of this would have been possible.

The future is here, and it looks better than ever!